As the season nears its halfway mark, the standings – and the power rankings – look less and less surprising and more and more like we thought they’d look before the season started.
The New York Yankees are heating up at the right time. The Boston Red Sox are on fire and they thumped the Bronx Bombers over and over last week to gain the American League East lead, so the Yankees’ 6-1 run since then is well-timed.
The Phillies have the best record in the Majors, not surprising with their stacked pitching staff, but they will be tested in this game facing last year’s Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez.
With the Tigers streaking this month they have taken over the lead in the AL Central and they visit the Mile High City in an interleague match up with the Rockies, who has beat Detroit in 7 of their last 8 games facing them.
The Toronto Blue Jays are more or less where we thought they’d be at this point of the season, not truly contending in the American League East but remaining a competitive pest for the juggernauts.
While they haven’t been perfect, the Milwaukee Brewers have settled in as one of the National League’s better teams, going 23-9 over their last 32 games.
The Chicago White Sox are back in the American League Central hunt, partially because their play has improved and partially because the Cleveland Indians have predictably faltered.
Baseball is a game of stats and streaks. The Red Sox started this season 2-10 and had all kinds of problems with pitching, injuries and an ice cold offense.
There’s been a huge emphasis on power in baseball over the last decade. Certainly there’s been a lot focus on bulk and home runs, speed as an extremely important, and often overlooked, aspect of winning baseball.
The road back to respectability clearly goes through the pitching staff for the Cincinnati Reds. They’ve been half a good team this season, mashing the cover off the ball but posting some of the league’s worst pitching numbers.
The Boston Red Sox are peaking at the right time for an important weekend showdown with the Toronto Blue Jays, who always seem to play them tough at the Rogers Centre.
In football it’s interesting and unique to have a left-handed quarterback, like Boomer Esiason or Kenny Stabler. The same thing is true in basketball. It doesn’t make any difference if an ace point guard dribbles the ball primarily with his left hand, or a pivot man shoots left handed.
The Boston Red Sox are peaking at the right time for an important weekend showdown with the Toronto Blue Jays, who always seem to play them tough at the Rogers Centre.
The St. Louis Cardinals are heating up again. A big reason for that: Lance Berkman is back from injury and hasn’t missed a beat. The Big Puma has clubbed three homers in his last four games.
The Dodgers are a team in denial. They want to believe they’re a National League West contender but that simply isn’t true. L.A. has too much dead weight and not enough talent.
The bleeding just…won’t…stop for Oakland. Remember when the A’s were a sexy American League Wildcard sleeper? An eight-game losing streak has all but erased that idea. Oakland is even finding creative ways to lose.
